


Comminuted Fracture

by Elsey8



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Angst, Emotional Baggage, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Pain, Repression, basically its not happy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:42:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,497
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29165901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elsey8/pseuds/Elsey8
Summary: A comminuted fracture is when a bone breaks or splinters into two or more pieces. A considerable amount of force and energy is required for such breaks, usually occurring after high-impact trauma.A second look at 2/2, in two parts.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 11
Kudos: 55





	1. Sunset

Goro watches Akira, which is far from a new thing. 

He looks for signs that he’s going to waver, that for any moment he’s not going to slide the calling card across the table to Maruki before leaning back. 

Goro can’t even see his eyes, can’t read a fraction of his expression before Maruki leaves. Even then, even when Goro can step closer to look, there’s nothing to be read on his face. 

His glasses hide too much of his eyes, and the rest of his expression is neutral. So carefully neutral. 

Goro used to wonder if Akira felt  _ anything  _ sometimes.

Goro doesn’t directly tell the cat to leave. He doesn’t say what he wants to, he doesn’t snap. He is slow in his words, watching Akira the whole time for any reaction. 

“I want to speak with Akira,” he says. 

“Akechi...” 

Worthless pity. This is exactly what he didn’t want from them, this is why he kept his mouth shut about his suspicions. He didn’t want to give them one more reason to look at him like that. 

Goro grits his teeth and waits for the creature to leave. He doesn’t need to sit down or make Akira get up, he seems to know they need to be on even ground for the conversation. 

Akira gets up all on his own to stand opposite Goro.

Finally, something like relief fills Goro and he feels like at least now, no matter what, Akira is going to listen to him. 

“I can’t be controlled by him,” Goro says. 

He doesn’t need to, but he says it. He knows it’s an obvious point to make, it’s one he’s made before, and it’s something Akira doesn’t need to hear again. He says it anyway. 

Akira blinks slowly a few times, glasses pushed so far up that his eyelashes brush the lenses. 

He nods. 

His face is still blank. 

“I will carve my own path. I refuse to live in his reality, forever controlled by him, always simply a puppet in his game.” Goro slides his eyes from Akira’s face to the side and feels his mouth twitch. “Not again.”

He finds the courage to look up when he hears Akira take a deep breath in. This is it, this is the conversation that will end in Akira’s decision. 

Goro’s fate is in his hands, and he doesn’t know if he trusts him with it. 

“Are you sure?” Akira asks. 

His hands are shoved in his pockets now, and his voice is so quiet. Goro isn’t sure he even heard him right, but Akira doesn’t continue. 

Goro wants to demand that Akira say his piece first, throw a tantrum and make him tell Goro his  _ own  _ conviction. He bites the inside of his cheek until the urge goes away. 

“Why wouldn’t I be?” he snaps instead. 

Akira doesn’t even step back as much as shifts backwards. He doesn’t seem hurt by the words, just a little surprised. 

“Don’t ask stupid questions. Not after all this time,” Goro sighs. “You don’t have to do much, simply hold onto your convictions and challenge Maruki. Unless you truly are so spineless that you’d fold under some  _ bullshit _ , trivial threat on my life.”

Akira makes a soft sound that Goro can’t begin to pick apart. It sounds like some sort of acknowledgement, but it isn’t repeated and Akira doesn’t answer him for a moment. 

Goro stands where he is and he waits. 

“It’s not trivial,” Akira mutters. 

“Don’t tell me after all of this, you’re giving up here.” 

Akira pushes his glasses up his nose, until they’re pressed so close to his face that Goro wonders if it’s uncomfortable. 

Goro unconsciously pulls his gloves up as he waits for Akira’s response. 

“I won’t,” Akira answers. 

“You won’t what?”

“I won’t fold.”

Akira’s voice remains void of emotion, although Goro can still tell fairly easily that Akira isn’t happy with the answer he’s come to. Akira isn’t as impartial as he pretends to be, and there’s something almost angry that sits in wait under his level tone. 

Goro isn’t sure if he wants to snap the beast awake or let it lick its wounds. 

“You know what must be done.” Goro takes a step towards Akira. “I want to hear you say it, aloud. Tell me what you intend to do.”

Akira surprises him with another step forward, closer. His eyes are still barely visible, although Goro can feel more than see the storm that’s brewing beneath Akira’s skin. 

Although he hadn’t meant to, he thinks Akira is awake and aware and he is  _ watching  _ him now. 

“Are you happy?” Akira asks.

“Happy?”

Goro is so taken aback that his entire speech crumbles. He had arguments upon arguments, he had things to say to Akira to make sure he didn’t get them both trapped in some false reality. He had things to use against Akira’s empathy, ways to appeal to his humanity and get to his desired result. 

He could see the questions Akira would ask, testing how sure he was. 

He knew the moment Akira knew he didn’t want to die, it would be over. He had plotted how to dance around that subject until Akira was already full of that fiery conviction. He was sure he had this down easy, he was sure he knew how Akira would react and how to deal with it. 

But Akira...has always surprised him. He always seems to have more and more to show, when Goro least expects it. 

“Are you happy?” Akira repeats.

“Now?”

Akira nods. His eyes are pure fire, determined and set in molten metal. Goro has always liked his eyes, how expressive they are if you just look a little closer, past the fake glasses. 

“I’m not sure I would call this happy,” Goro admits. 

“Will doing this make you happy? Have you... _ ever _ been happy?”

“Why are you so obsessed with something as stupid as happiness?” Goro snaps. 

But Akira doesn’t take it, Goro hears his frustrated huff and he sees the way his hands come out of his pockets to fist at his sides. Anger on Akira is a double edged sword, and it has Goro straightening up and crossing his arms against his chest. 

It’s not necessarily retreating as much as it is bracing himself. 

“It’s not stupid,” he snaps back. “Your happiness is a real thing that’s important to me. I need to know. Just answer the damn question.”

“The alternative will make me miserable and furious,” Goro answers. 

“Stop dodging my questions.”

“Kurusu, stop being ridiculous—“

“Stop!” Akira slams his hand down on the counter. 

Goro quiets and takes a half step back. 

Akira’s frame is shaking, a slight tremble that could be more due to his panting than anything else, but Goro sees it. Akira’s anger burns freezing cold. 

“Why are  _ you  _ upset?” Goro mutters. 

“Don’t call me Kurusu like we’re nothing. Stop trying to avoid the things that you think will make me falter. I’m asking you a question, and I want you to answer it. Are you happy? Yes or no. You don’t even have to speak. There’s no use dodging it now.”

It’s the most Goro thinks he’s heard Akira say at once. Akira is capable of speech, fully. 

But he’s always been quiet and reserved, always listened more than he spoke back. His responses to things are always carefully calculated, he’s always seemed to be several steps ahead in any exchange. Akira took and took and took and held on and never gave back. 

Sometimes, Goro still has to wonder how he holds so much in him. 

In his shock, all he can do is shake his head.  _ No _ . 

Akira’s form curls up and in as if he’s in pain, before relaxing. The moment of vulnerability is shoved down to make room for something deemed more important than emotion. 

“I will not fold,” he whispers. “I won’t.”

Goro isn’t sure if it’s directed at him as a comfort or if Akira is speaking the mantra to himself.

“Have you ever been happy? When...when we laughed together. Your smile. Was that happiness ever real?”

Goro remembers helplessly hiding a smile behind his glove because Akira was making a fool of himself behind the counter. Laughing as Akira attempted to narrate a story in as few words as possible. Genuinely enjoying and complimenting the coffee Akira would make just for him. 

“You gave me so many things...were any of them real?” Akira continues, quieter. 

Goro remembers things spilling out of him like a faucet that won’t turn off in time because you turned it too far up in the first place. Overflowing over the side as he frantically attempted to pull himself back together. 

He gave Akira so much more than he was ever supposed to. He was more real than he meant to be. 

“It was.”

“That makes things harder,” Akira sighs. 

“I know.” 

It’s the closest Goro can manage to an apology right now. 

Akira’s entire body seems to shake and pull inwards. He raises his hands up to grip at his arms and looks up at Goro. 

His eyes are clear behind his glasses now, shiny with unshed tears. 

“What do I do with that?”

“I don’t know.”

Goro winces when the tears spill over Akira’s eyes and down his cheeks. 

This is why Goro could never tell him. This is why Goro wanted to make Akira find his conviction before any of this. Akira’s emotions are volatile, even more so than Goro’s. He’s never watched them all come out before, just these flashes in bits and pieces. 

The last time Goro remembers seeing it was when Akira decimated a Shadow mercilessly on their way to Yoshizawa. Goro had never seen him exercise so much power with so little caution. It was a waste of strength on a low level enemy, but Akira had just done it and moved on like it was nothing. 

Even that, in comparison to this, is just a droplet in an ocean. 

This is unnecessary, this is the only thing that could ever change Akira’s mind on what he decided before. If Goro doesn’t manage to pull him back to rational, he isn’t sure what kind of burst will happen. 

“You can’t let him dangle me over your head,” Goro reminds him. “I’m bait for you. My life—“

“Don’t say it’s trivial. Don’t say your life doesn’t matter,” Akira begs. “I can’t listen to you say that again or I’m going to....I’m really going to break. And it’s not going to be pretty. It won’t be a clean one.”

Goro thinks that maybe he would like to see that. Even if it’s ill-advised, he does want to see all of Akira before it’s over. Everything Akira has shown him so far tonight has been something he’s never seen, something new that he’d never been trusted with before.

Maybe it isn’t really trust so much as Akira being unable to hide the things that would normally be locked up so tight. Maybe the bottomless pit has finally reached a limit, the excess spilling from the cracks. 

“In the grand scheme of things, my life doesn’t matter. It’s me against the world, and—“

“So what if I want to choose you?!” Akira screams, something pained and desperate.

It’s raw. It’s real. Goro can’t ignore it. 

He glances towards the door, although he knows in this perfect reality they’re alone in this bubble. Nobody will come running no matter how loud Akira yells at him. 

Goro swallows and has no idea what he’s supposed to say back. 

Akira is panting, choking on his sobs as he stands in front of him looking for all the world like he’s just been cracked open. Like the split in a geode, opened up to reveal something beautiful but jagged inside. 

“If you were truly choosing me, Akira, you’d let me go,” Goro whispers.

He knows it’s not the right thing to say before it even comes out of his mouth, but he can’t stop it from tumbling out regardless. He gets to watch each unique way that it tears Akira apart. 

First, he falls. He crumbles. 

Goro has to step back when Akira falls hard on his knees. He isn’t even looking at him anymore, the way he pulls his arms around himself and curls up like the smaller he makes himself the better everything is. 

“Please tell me you won’t go against my wishes because of this.” Goro kneels in front of him. “Come on, look at me.”

“Are you sure you’re going to die?” Akira asks. 

It’s desperate, it’s a useless thing to hope on. Akira is looking at him like he truly believes in it. 

“I don’t remember anything after the engine room. No, I’m not positive. But I’m fairly certain.” 

Second, Akira pulls into himself again. Tighter, before it comes bursting out. 

“Do you  _ want  _ to die?” Akira cries, raising his head to look and glare. 

He’s angry, pissed, and Goro isn’t sure where that’s being directed considering it’s not exactly Goro’s fault they’re in this situation. If Maruki hadn’t brought him back, at least Akira wouldn’t have had the choice in the matter of losing him. 

Goro swears he’s going to tear that man’s head from his neck. 

“Do you?” Akira demands. 

Goro just shakes his head.  _ No _ . He can’t speak it. He thinks that will make things worse. 

Third, Akira grabs for him. His hands close around Goro’s, and pulls him in. 

“We take the deal,” Akira says. 

“ _ No _ .”

“Please, we just take it. Neither of us want this to happen, so why don’t we just bite the bullet? I just want you to be happy, please Goro.” 

“Look at me, Akira.” Goro pulls his hands away and drags Akira’s attention with the motion. “If you take this deal, I will never forgive you. I don’t care if I’m happy in that reality, it will be fake. That won’t be me. You know it won’t. Stop trying to get out of this.” 

Fourth, Goro watches the break happen. He was sure it had happened several times over already, but all of those were nothing compared to this utter destruction. Despite what Akira said, it  _ is  _ rather clean. Rather pretty, the way his entire expression caves in from something pained but still trying to be neutral to...destroyed. Agony. He’s shaking, bending and bending and bending. And he breaks. 

Goro has sent numerous people to their demise, he’s ruined so many. Killed them. 

But he’s never seen a human being  _ break  _ like this before. 

Akira opens his mouth like he’s going to respond to that, and then he just screams out a cry. He yells out his sobs, like if he’s loud enough he can change the ugly and painful truth.

Nothing he’s shrieking out is anything like a word, but he’s still doing it. His whole body follows the sounds, absolute and total pain consuming his form. 

Goro didn’t know Akira was capable of so much emotion. 

“Akira.”

Akira clutches his head and shakes it. His palms press to his ears like for once in his life he’s decided to stop listening.

Goro pulls his hands away. 

“Akira.”

Akira reaches up more to tug at his hair, so hard it must be painful. Goro watches strands of hair come out of his head between his fingers. 

Goro pulls his hands away. 

“Akira.”

Akira claws down his face, half wiping away tears in the process although it’s clear that’s not the point as scratches appear down his cheeks. 

Goro pulls his hands away. 

“ _ Akira _ .”

“It hurts!” Akira yells at him, slapping his hands away. “You couldn’t possibly understand how this feels right now, how badly everything aches! Please...please stay. I have you now, I may have fucked up everything before but you’re here now and I’m supposed to let you go? I can’t. I don’t know if that’s something I can do. I can’t do this. Don’t make me.”

“You can do anything,” Goro assures him, only because it’s true. 

“But I don’t  _ want  _ to do it this time. I don’t want to do the impossible for this. I can’t, I don’t want to. Please, I don’t want to.”

Goro finds himself speechless again. 

“Maybe if we just stay here and don’t ever decide it’ll be fine. Maybe we can just stay in this moment at an impasse. Goro, I  _ can’t. _ ”

Goro looks at Akira, and he doesn’t say not showing up is it’s own choice but he watches Akira’s feeble hope be reduced to nothing in the split moment of eye contact. 

Goro thinks he does understand the ache, settling deep in his chest to stay. 

“It was hard enough the first two times I had to let you go. I’m so sick of watching your back disappearing, just out of reach.” 

Akira flexes his fingers, then curls them into tight fists and presses them against his eyes. 

“Akira—“

“For once, I want to see your face again. I want to see you turn and walk back to me. I don’t want to chase you anymore,” Akira murmurs. “But I know that’s my fate.”

“Just let me go,” Goro half begs. 

Akira pulls Goro’s glove out of his pocket and clutches it with both hands. 

“I can’t.”

Something about it makes Goro oddly happy. Maybe not quite happy, but certainly satisfied. It soothes some part of him that he’s ingrained himself so much into Akira’s life. He’s left a mark that matters, with someone worth it. 

Goro has ruined a lot of people, but none were so undeserving of it as Akira. He didn’t want to ruin anyone as much as he did Akira. 

It’s a contradiction that led Goro to self destruction. 

He still hasn’t figured out how to solve it. 

“I’m not even worth holding onto.” 

“You’re worth  _ everything _ ,” Akira says. 

It isn’t the time. 

Goro always knew he was going to tear Akira apart, but he didn’t think it was going to be like this. He didn’t think he’d be regretting every moment of it. 

He didn’t think it would hurt him too, like some recoil damage that tries desperately to crush his ribs over his heart. 

“What do you want from me, Akira? We have to do the right thing here. I can’t...I can’t be controlled again. I can’t just sit back and let this happen.”

“I know. You think I don’t? I know,” Akira sighs. 

“You don’t have to say it. We can just go in tomorrow, promise me that and I’ll leave it.”

“We’re stopping Maruki,” Akira tells him. “No matter what that entails.” 

He sounds miserable. He sounds defeated. Resigned to a fate that never fit either of them. 

“I’m sorry,” Goro whispers, and hopes Akira doesn’t hear.

“But I want to make a deal.”

Goro watches Akira knit himself back together, every bit morbidly beautiful as when he broke. 

He wipes his tears away from under his glasses, he breathes deeply and evenly, he shifts back so he can stand up and smooth down his clothes, and his expression carefully falls back into something blank and emotionless. 

It’s honestly freaky, how quickly he pulls himself together. 

“What kind of deal?” Goro asks, standing with him.

“We don’t have to call it anything. We don’t have to talk. But just...can you stay? For tonight?”

Akira has his hand reached out, and Goro takes it instead of answering. 

It’s not what either of them want to do, but it’s a conviction they can’t abandon.

Goro closes his eyes and feels the fusion of his two selves, slotting together as one. 

He opens his eyes to Akira, the only home he’s ever known. The space he’d go back to just to toss and turn and never sleep wouldn’t begin to measure up. 

He does one of the two things he can do now. First, he wraps his arms around Akira’s shoulders and pulls him into a hug. 

Second, he tells Akira, “I’m not going anywhere.”

He omits the _ not yet. _


	2. Sunrise

Akira has felt grief before. 

The first time he lost sight of Goro, when his form had disappeared behind that big bulkhead door and he’s tried to hold on desperately to something fluid. That was a grief that left him empty. It left this hole behind in his chest where he used to reserve a space for Goro, and he was sure it would never be filled again. 

Everything in Tokyo felt ruined. A barstool in Leblanc had become Goro’s, and he would never sit there again. Akira couldn’t watch TV without thinking about the first time he’d seen Goro on it. The jazz club was Goro’s place, an old haunt that Akira couldn’t walk within sight of without wanting to break down. Entire things were ruined, like gloves and bathhouses and billiards. The sight of crows made him sick. 

Akira felt like he couldn’t escape the grief that tried to drown him. The water was to his knees already so he simply knelt and put his head underwater. 

When Maruki brought him back, Akira had been  _ happy.  _ He felt full again, he felt like that hurt finally lessened for the first time since the initial break had happened. 

He didn’t say how badly he wanted to stay right where they were, because he knew something like that wouldn’t really work with Goro. He told himself he’d be happy just seeing Goro’s face again, he could deal with letting go again. He didn’t want to upset Goro, put any wrenches in his plan or try to make any decisions he didn’t deserve to make. 

Akira has always let go of the things he’s wanted. He’s used to the feeling of loss, and intimately familiar with how grief suffocates him and everything around him. He was sure this was just another thing to let go and watch go with his true feelings pushed all the way down, easily. 

He was wrong. 

Goro expected him to be strong and unmoving while chipping away at his carefully crafted stoic walls over and over. Akira was supposed to be immovable, and Goro was unstoppable. Akira quickly found he wasn’t nearly as solid as he gave himself credit for. 

That hurt more than anything, that Goro was trying to draw out all the hurt in him to examine, to check for signs of cowardice. He felt on display, being judged and examined and he’d already felt raw and disgusting. He felt like he failed, somehow. 

He’d shattered, and Goro looked at each of his pieces and in the end all he promised was to stay for the night. 

That’s all Akira can be worth. Which isn’t fair, because he knows Goro has been controlled his whole life and he deserves to be free from that even if…

He still can’t help his own notion that Goro doesn’t want to give him more time than he has to, because Akira has only ever slowly but surely lost his grip on the people who matter to him. His friends back home, his own parents, every person he’d ever known slipped right between his fingers the day he made the decision that changed his life. It was far from fair, that one “mistake” would drive them all away, but nothing about any of that was fair in the first place. 

What say does he have in something like that? What say does he have in anything? In his own life? 

Again, he’s sacrificing what he wants. No matter how badly he wants it. It doesn’t matter, this isn’t actually up to him. 

Goro is sure. So Akira won’t fold. 

At least they get to make a compromise. At least Akira can walk away from this with  _ something.  _

He doesn’t want to think that it’s not enough, even if it isn’t. 

“Akira, stop worrying. I was only gone for a few minutes.” 

Akira lifts his head to watch Goro walk the rest of the way up the stairs. He’s wearing Akira’s clothes, sweatpants that are too big on him but fit Goro well, and a random shirt he grabbed for him. Goro drops his regular clothes in a neatly folded pile on Akira’s desk. 

Akira glances at the gloves set on top and then back at Goro’s bare hands, and he swings his legs over the side of his bed. 

“I should go make us coffee,” he mutters. 

“Coffee? Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

Akira is already making his way towards the staircase, but Goro is quick to grab his arm and pull him back. Strong fingers grip around his wrist and Goro’s nails dig a little painfully into the skin before he loosens his grip slightly.

“You don’t get to shut down on me now,” Goro says firmly. 

Akira knows that. He knows Goro won’t accept anything but  _ him,  _ as he is. Even if right now all he wants to do is shut it off, feel numb again, not have to come to terms with the fact that this is Goro’s last night. 

Goro is going to demand that he is himself, even if that’s the most exhausting version of Akira there is to see. 

“Are we really sleeping?” Akira asks. 

“I was planning on it. We need to rest for the infiltration tomorrow.” 

“I want to watch the sunrise with you. I want every minute I can have. Can I go make us coffee?”

Goro sighs, his eyes sliding across the room until they land just...away. Far away. 

“If that’s what you want, go ahead.” 

Goro still has a hand on his arm, so Akira twists around to grab onto his own wrist and pull him along with him downstairs back into the cafe. Goro simply goes without a word. 

Akira takes his spot behind the counter, washing his hands as he surveys what he has to work with. 

Goro sits, immediately, at his regular barstool. 

Akira’s heart seizes, and frantically he starts to press that down. He won’t let himself be overcome by a moment of this, he can’t break into more pieces. The worse it is the longer it’ll take to heal, and he already feels like this hurt will never go away. He won’t break again, he won’t. 

Akira makes them coffee. Well, he makes Goro’s favorite and pours himself some to save the time. Goro doesn’t say anything the whole time he’s working, just sits there with his chin in his bare palm and watches. 

When he takes a sip, this warm half smile ghosts across his face. 

“Wonderful, as always,” he comments. 

“Thanks,” Akira says. 

He drinks down the coffee, scalding as it is, so he doesn’t cry again. The burn helps distract him. 

Goro sets his mug down on the counter, the edge hitting down first before he settles it flat. His fingers uncurl from the handle, then disappear to rest in his lap. 

“I want you to know I’m sorry,” Goro murmurs. 

Akira bites his lip and focuses on that physical pain rather than the hot searing emotional need to cry and scream again. 

Goro is chipping away at him again, at the still mostly open wounds at the surface of his skin. 

“This isn’t a decision you should’ve had to make. This isn’t something you should have to do. I know you said you can’t, but you’re going to anyway. I...I hope that things will work out for you, however they can.”

Akira nods and turns quickly to start cleaning up. 

There’s nothing else he can do. He can’t take Goro by the shoulders and ask if he really means that. Goro has never apologized for a single thing he’s done, but he’s sitting here apologizing to Akira over something that isn’t even his fault. 

He has Goro here with him for a few hours, he wants to make the most of it but he also doesn’t know how to do that. He just kind of wants to hold onto him until Goro makes him let go. He wants the answers Goro has never told him, but that feels too final. Every single one of Goro’s actions so far just makes Akira think he’s setting up his own death flags. 

Akira still isn’t sure if he wants to believe this is really the end for them. 

Akira scrubs the mug he was using too hard, he’s sure it’s not as dirty as he’s pretending it is to keep his hands steady and busy. Warmth slides from his left shoulder around his back and resting on his right with pressure settling all the way across. 

Akira drops the mug in the sink, and he hears Goro’s amused little huff right next to his ear. 

He’ll never wash dishes again without this moment burning into his memory. He doesn’t know if he can ever be touched again without remembering how much  _ more  _ Goro’s feels like. 

He doesn’t think he’s breathing. 

“That poor mug,” Goro snorts. 

Is this real? Is this Goro real? 

Akira thinks about asking, but then Goro is reaching into the sink, hand brushing Akira’s soapy ones as he picks up the mug and lifts it to inspect it. Just the barest brush of their knuckles sends electricity tingling all the way up Akira’s spine to rest in his shoulders as hard tension. Goro digs his fingertips into the tension without mentioning it. 

“It seems fine, thankfully. Wouldn’t want your second casualty of the night on my hands.” 

Goro rinses the mug off under the still running water, all with his left hand as his right stays stubbornly around Akira, harshly pressing the knots out from his muscles. Like that’s meant to be normal for them. 

“Where does this go?” 

Akira takes it and takes a step to the side so he can put it away. Goro’s hand slips that step away, but stays resting between his shoulder blades. A pressure that can’t be anything but something to assure Akira, something to tell him Goro hasn’t disappeared yet. 

When Akira steps back, Goro’s fingers curl around his right shoulder again and his hair brushes against his left, against his neck, as he leans a bit closer. 

Is  _ this  _ real? Is this really what Goro wants to do, or is this some pity being taken on him? A last attempt to make him happy before whatever happens tomorrow? 

“Are we going back upstairs now?” Goro asks. 

He’s so close, Akira can feel the way his face moves as he talks, his jaw shifting and lips parting. The way the breaths feel against his neck. 

When Goro is gone, will these feelings stay? Will Akira be washing dishes and feel the phantom pains of an arm around him and someone so close he can feel their life as it fans across his skin? He thinks Goro will always haunt him like this.

“Yeah,” Akira manages. 

Goro lets go of him then, finally giving Akira the space he needs to take deep breaths and feel like he isn’t being slowly crushed under increasing pressure. 

Akira follows him up the stairs, switching the lights off in Leblanc on his way. Goro stretches at the top, hands reaching far up as his entire body stretches out. The shirt lifts, and something pops as Goro hisses out a swear. 

“Alright, am I sleeping on the couch?” Goro asks, turning his head. 

Akira finishes climbing the stairs, a much more difficult task than it should be just because he keeps getting so distracted. Akira has no idea what he’s going to do with the clothes Goro is borrowing right now when he’s gone. 

He isn’t sure what he’s supposed to do. Give them away? Burn them? Keep them forever? 

“No. I will, you can have my bed.” 

Goro stares down at the bed, and Akira is ready for the complaints. Maybe it’s so below Goro’s standards he’ll go back on their deal just so he doesn’t have to sleep in Akira’s bed. 

“I’m sure we can both squeeze and fit,” Goro comments. “Come on, lets see.” 

Akira slides into his bed, all the way into the corner because he’s sure without asking that Goro will want the outside. When Goro lays next to him, if they push close enough together, they can fit even if the bed is small. 

Being so close makes everything a million times worse all over again. Akira has never been this close to someone like this, so entangled that he can’t tell which heartbeat is his own and which breaths come from his own mouth. He never wants to untangle them. 

“Is this okay?” Akira asks quietly. 

“Perfectly fine,” Goro dismisses. 

He isn’t sure what they’re supposed to do now, if not sleep. Usually they would play chess or do a crossword together or have some sort of debate that Goro always got just slightly irked by if he lost. But they’ve already abandoned Leblanc, now they’re in unfamiliar territory. The only times Goro has been up in the attic was when he was in the Phantom Thieves and they were having meetings. That was so far from anything like this. 

Goro’s clothes are on his desk, preventing an attempt to just start making infiltration tools. He’s sure Goro would take to learning them, but he can’t rely on that because moving those clothes away feels like it’s going to disrupt something Akira shouldn’t touch. 

He doubts he has any movies or games Goro would like, so there’s no use in the TV. All he has is himself, and he doesn’t know if that’ll be enough. 

Akira usually isn’t enough. 

Goro plucks his glasses off and folds them, twisting around to set them off to the side. 

“What was that for?” Akira asks, too late to grab them back. 

“You don’t need them to see, right? It’s fine, you don’t need to wear those around me at this point.”

Goro’s hand comes up, his thumb brushing lightly over Akira’s eyelashes until his eyes flutter and close. When he opens them, Goro repeats the motion with a quiet laugh. 

“Stop that,” he mumbles. 

“I’m done,” Goro promises. 

Akira slowly blinks his eyes back open, immediately overwhelmed by the look in Goro’s eyes. 

Goro brings his hand back up, this time stroking over his cheek to trace where his tear tracks are still drying. 

“Are you real?” Akira blurts. 

“What do you mean by that?”

“This you, is this real? You’ve never touched me like this before. You’ve never touched me this much. I don’t know if you’ve ever even touched me _ at all  _ before tonight _.”  _

“I’m catching up,” Goro explains, running a hand through Akira’s hair. “All the times I held myself back around you, I’m just making up for lost time. It was very difficult, before, you know that? But, do you want me to stop?”

That’s the problem. Akira wants this so bad, this sharp pain in his chest longs for this. He never wants Goro to stop and that’s the problem because tomorrow is tomorrow and tonight is only tonight. 

Every moment that passes between them is another step closer to the end of things, whatever that might be. Every look, every word, every touch between them is unbearable agony. It adds to the bitter at their bittersweet end. 

“No.” 

He holds on desperately to something that’s shifting in his hands, something that was solid when he first grabbed onto it and is now melting rapidly. It’s too hot in his hands, it’s burning him, and he’s stuck watching it happen because he doesn’t want to let go. 

The candle is burning down and it’s far too late to stop it. Akira doesn’t know if he ever had enough time to stop it. 

Goro cradles his face, soft and gentle and nothing at all like Akira would expect from him. He watches, he looks, he touches, and then he kisses Akira’s forehead. 

Forehead kisses are ruined, Akira adds it to his mental list. 

It’s like their waltz here is on repeat. Goro does something, and Akira hurts hurts  _ hurts.  _ Goro traps him in a cycle of grief and agony, and Akira just wants to press closer and never leave again. 

Akira is more worried than ever that this is being done for him, rather than Goro’s true feelings. He keeps his mouth shut and pushes past Goro’s touch to press against his chest instead. 

He listens to his heart beat, alive for now. It has an off pattern, not quite as steady as it usually would. It’s going a little faster, and Akira wonders if it’s him or this whole situation or maybe Goro has some heart condition he never told them about. It could be anything, and Akira doesn’t ask. 

He’s wanted this before, to lay like this vulnerably with Goro because all he ever really wanted was to save the one person in his life who refused to be saved. 

He played a fool’s game and he lost. He’s gotten this artificial redo, and he knows what the right answer is to it, but he also knows that he’s just going to lose again. This isn’t a situation where he can win in the first place, so he’s kind of resigned himself to what he’s been convinced is right. Not that he’s ever been really right, really good. 

Akira just floats somewhere between, unsure and always changing. 

It’s not like Akira ever gets to really win any game he plays, not in a way that matters. Akira knows he can’t save everyone, he can’t erase all the bad in the world, but...he wanted to do it for Goro. If no one else, just for Goro. He just wanted Goro at his side. 

That’s probably messed up. 

Goro’s heartbeat is speeding up the longer Akira stays there, and Akira won’t fold. He told himself he wouldn’t, he told Goro he wouldn’t. He can be stronger than that. He  _ is  _ stronger than that. 

Akira doesn’t know if he’ll ever be able to sleep with anyone else when this feels so right. The way they slot together is perfect, and Goro is far from gentle as he plays with Akira’s hair but it’s still  _ nice.  _ It’s still so them, and that’s perfection in Akira’s eyes. 

Akira doesn’t believe in soulmates, or fate, or anything like that. Or maybe he does, a little. He doesn’t know how else he’s supposed to explain the way he feels about Goro, how to dismiss how perfect they have always been. Evenly matched, the best pair, it feels like they come together again and again and again. The ocean waves relentless on the shore, against the rocks, eroding with every crash. 

Akira isn’t sure if he can love anyone the way he loves Goro, he isn’t sure if he can...love anyone after this. He doesn’t know if anyone will ever be able to know him as well and as wholly as Goro does. He doesn’t know if he wants anyone to know him better than Goro, he selfishly wants to leave the best and worst pieces of himself with Goro to bring to the grave with him. He trusts Goro with that. With everything. 

What does Akira do with that? What is he meant to do once this is over, once he stands again in his hometown with nothing and no one? 

“I knew who I was, at one point. I was set in convictions and revenge and I convinced myself that was all I was and all I had. But I was just a replica of my true self, and I think you saw past that. I think you know who I am, even though I’m still unsure.”

Akira finally pulls away from Goro’s chest to look at him, and just frowns and wipes the tears away when he sees them. He’s never seen Goro cry, and seeing it now slowly starts to carve him empty again. 

“You’re...just you, Goro. That’s all you’ve ever been. I can’t tell you who you are, because everyone changes from moment to moment, there are complexities in the psyche that would bring me to an argument that every version of yourself is your true self. All I know is you’re you, and I think that you are the best one there is.”

_ I love you,  _ Akira thinks. _ I love you, I love you, I love you. Help me, I love you.  _

“I see,” Goro sighs. “I can certainly understand that.” 

Akira hurts, and he’s so tired of hurting. He’s so tired. 

“I think that you are the best you there is too,” Goro murmurs. 

Akira isn’t sure if he was meant to really hear it, it’s so quiet. 

“There are a lot of versions of me,” Akira mutters. 

“You are uniquely  _ you  _ right now, though. You don’t have a wall up against me anymore.” 

That’s true. Akira knows Goro could see that from the beginning, but he was hoping he wouldn’t point it out. Akira’s last ditch effort to keep his mask up was taken when Goro took his glasses. 

Akira thinks this day itself will always be some sort of morbid anniversary. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever really be able to not count down the days to each of the important dates with Goro. He doesn’t know if he can live his life forgetting Goro. 

He doesn’t know if he can live fully without Goro, but that part scares him too much. 

What would Goro do if he told all of his truth? What would  _ he  _ do with everything out there like that? 

Akira wants to know, he wants to know everything before it’s too late. 

“I love--”

“Don’t say it,” Goro interrupts quickly. 

“Why?”

“You love...night, right? You like to run around when it’s dark out for some bizarre reason. Say that instead.” 

“ _ Why? _ ”

“Maruki made me to be your trap, and you’re mine. You must know that.” 

Akira didn’t know that. He didn’t know...it went both ways. 

“I didn’t,” he admits. 

“Obviously. You are the only one who could ever convince me to stay here. You may say that it’s up to me, but if you asked me to stay properly, if that’s what you wanted...please just say something else. I really can’t hear it, not right now. Please don’t ask something like that of me right now.”

When else? When else can he hear it if not now? It will be too late soon enough, and Akira wants to beg him to let it all spill over. He thinks breaking into pieces was the best he can get for right now as catharsis. 

“I love coffee. Your favorite is a good one, making it for the two of us is nice,” Akira says instead. 

It’s too late for the truth. 

It’s too late for anything Akira really wants, it’s too late to ask Goro to stay because he could’ve done it if he didn’t love Goro so much. If it were anyone else, he could simply reason it was for their own good and go ahead with whatever he thought was right. 

Akira’s love is the reason he’s letting go. 

If Goro knows these things anyway, if they can just live unspoken between them until the end, then maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe Akira can be alright again. 

Caging a crow looks so good on paper, but Akira...knows birds need to be free. They need to fly and do whatever birds are want to do, live rather than be on display to be gawked at. Trying to control any animal is a fool’s errand. He may be a fool, but...just this time he needs to keep his wits. 

He looks at Goro, then presses closer to listen to his heartbeat again. 

When his eyes snap open again, Goro is sitting up with the window open half leaning outside. The sunrise paints his face with warm colors, and there’s something far away in his eyes. Like he’s thinking about jumping out to see if he can fly towards the sun coming up over the horizon. When he hears Akira shift, he looks over. He moves over, and Akira moves to fill that space so they can watch the sunrise together. Goro puts his arm around him and they get so close together that the lines between them feel blurred. It is more than likely the last time they’ll get to tangle together, and they use it to fix their eyes on something completely out of reach. 

Goro is drawing his final breaths before the death march, before they go into the Palace to return everything to normal.  _ Everything.  _

“I love the sunrise,” Goro says, looking right at him. 

“Really? I prefer the sunset,” Akira responds in full. 

It’s the dawn of Goro’s last day. All Akira has to do now is hold up his side of their deal. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you enjoyed this, feel free to come talk to me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Gillian01430581)


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